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Ravener
This is adapted from a Pathfinder Bestiary entry. 'Ravener' Most evil dragons spend their lifetimes coveting and amassing wealth, but when the end draws near, some come to realize that all the wealth in the world cannot forestall death. Faced with this truth, most dragons vent their frustration on the countryside, ravaging the world before their passing. Yet some seek a greater solution to the problem and decide instead to linger on, hoarding life as they once hoarded gold. These foul wyrms attract the attention of dark powers, and through the blackest of necromantic rituals are transformed into undead dragons known as raveners. Although its body quickly rots away, a ravener does not care for the needs of the flesh. It seeks only to consume life, be it from wild animals, would-be dragonslayers, or even other dragons. A ravener is often on the move, changing lairs frequently as its territories become devoid of life. Creating a Ravener “Ravener” is an acquired template that can be added to any evil true dragon of an age category of Ancient or older (referred to hereafter as the base creature). A ravener retains all the base creature’s Statistics and Special Abilities except as noted here. CR: Same as the base creature +2. Alignment: Any evil. Type: The creature’s type changes to undead. Do not recalculate BAB, saves, or skill ranks. It keeps any subtypes possessed by the base creature. Senses: A ravener’s darkvision increases to 240 feet, and its blindsense increases to 120 feet. Armor Class: A ravener gains deflection bonus to its AC equal to half its Charisma bonus (minimum +1). Hit Dice: Keep all of the base creature’s racial Hit Dice as d12s. All Hit Dice derived from class levels remain unchanged. Defensive Abilities: A ravener gains turn resistance +4 and all of the immunities derived from undead traits. Its damage reduction changes from DR/magic to DR/good. Attacks: A ravener retains all of the natural attacks of the base creature, but each of these attacks threatens a critical hit on a 19 or 20. Feats like Improved Critical can increase this range further. If the ravener scores a critical hit with a natural weapon, the target gains 1 negative level. The DC to remove this negative level is equal to 10 + 1/2 the ravener’s Hit Dice + the ravener’s Charisma modifier. Whenever a creature gains a negative level in this way, the ravener adds 5 points to its soul ward. Special Qualities Soul Ward (Su) An intangible field of siphoned soul energy protects a ravener from destruction. This ward has a maximum number of hit points equal to twice the ravener’s Hit Dice, but starts at half this amount. Whenever a ravener would be reduced below 1 hit point, all damage in excess of that which would reduce it to 1 hit point is instead dealt to its soul ward. If this damage reduces the soul ward to fewer than 0 hit points, the ravener is destroyed. Special Attacks A ravener retains all of the special attacks of the base creature and gains the following special attacks as described below. All save DCs are equal to 10 + 1/2 the ravener’s HD + t he ravener’s Charisma modifier. Breath Weapon (Su) A ravener keeps the breath weapon of the base creature— the save DC for this breath weapon is now Charisma-based. In addition, a ravener’s breath weapon bestows 2 negative levels on all creatures in the area. A successful Reflex save halves the damage and reduces the energy drain to 1 negative level. The save DC to remove these negative levels is equal to the ravener’s breath weapon DC. The ravener adds 1 hit point to its soul ward ability for each negative level bestowed in this way. Cowering Fear (Su) Any creature shaken by the ravener’s frightful presence is cowering instead of shaken for the first round of the effect, and shaken for the rest of the duration. Any Creature that is panicked by its frightful presence is instead cowering for the duration. Soul Consumption (Su) When a living creature within 30 feet of a ravener dies, that creature’s sou l is torn from its body and pulled into the ravener’s maw if the dying creature fails a Will save (DC equals the save DC of the ravener’s breath weapon). This adds a number of hit points to the ravener’s soul ward equal to the dead creature’s Hit Dice. Creatures that have their souls consumed in this way can only be brought back to life through miracle, true resurrection, or wish. Soul Magic (Sp) A ravener retains the base creature’s spellcasting capability, adding three levels to the base creature’s caster level. This increases the number of spells known by the ravener, but the ravener loses all spell slots. Instead, whenever the ravener wishes to cast any one of its spells known, it consumes a number of hit points from its soul ward equal to the spell slot level necessary to cast the spell (including increased levels for metamagic feats and so on). If the soul ward has insufficient hit points, the ravener cannot cast that spell. Casting a spell that reduces its soul ward to exactly 0 hit points does not harm the ravener (though most are not comfortable without this buffer of soul-energy and try to replenish it quickly). Abilities: Str +4, Int +4, Wis +4, Cha+6. Being undead, a ravener has no Constitution score. Skills: A ravener has a +8 racial bonus on Intimidate, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Spot checks. The ravener’s class skills are otherwise the same as those of the base creature. Of all the creatures of the world, few inspire fear or awe like dragons. Possessed of physical might and prodigious magical talent, and growing more powerful with each passing century, dragons seem far above the concerns of those petty humanoids who war and die at their feat. Yet in truth, even dragons age, moving steadily toward their final rest. As even the good-aligned dragons tend to be arrogant and prideful (if not necessarily wrong in their high esteem for their own abilities), few are truly comfortable with the idea of their own inevitable end. Some especially proud dragons go so far as to attempt to break the bonds of mortality, seeking by forbidden lore and vile pacts to transcend the weakness inherent even in draconic flesh. Of the few who attempt this dark transformation, a handful rise from the ashes of their own mortality as the dread undead dragons known as raveners. This immortality is not without a terrible price. The arcane void within a ravener’s heart leaves her consumed by a maddening craving, a hunger that can only be sated by the life-essence of other beings. Each soul devoured temporarily restores a precious sliver of the draconic magic sacrificed to overcome the ravener’s mortality. But all too soon, the need to feast returns. All raveners are skeletal, though the precise appearance of a ravener’s skeleton depends on the type of dragon she was in life. Some raveners use magic to alter their appearances, either to disguise themselves or simply to make themselves that much more threatening, while others simply modify their skeletons physically, such as a white dragon ravener who encases her bones in flesh-shaped ice or a black dragon ravener who covers her form in clinging acid. Others are visibly wreathed in their auras, such as the red dragon ravener whose very bones exude heat and flame. Yet each possesses a soul ward, a field of stolen soul energy that wreathes the ravener’s bones and protects her from harm. As undead creatures, raveners’ ability to experience sensations is irrevocably dulled. Their hearing and vision may be matchless, but becoming a ravener demands the sacrifice of the nuances of taste, scent, and even touch, along with countless other pleasures of life. As a result, the ravener thrives on horrific excesses of emotion, for only in the heat of battle and wanton destruction or the gluttonous consumption of souls does the ravener again come close to the glorious sensations of being a living dragon. The circumstances that give rise to a ravener are as unique as their appearances. Some barter their very sanity to the madness beyond the Dark Tapestry, others forge bargains with demon lords or the Horsemen of Abaddon, and still others beseech malevolent gods. (Strangely, even lawful dragons make pacts with the lords of Hell only rarely—perhaps raveners find the strings attached to diabolical contracts too convoluted and numerous for comfort.) Yet not all raveners seek aid from more powerful creatures—in fact, doing so often confli cts with the same arrogance that leads dragons to become raveners in the first place. This second group instead finds immortality in much the same way liches do, researching rare and forbidden necromantic spells to create rituals of transformation unique to each dragon. As for why raveners don’t become true liches and create phylacteries, the answer remains unclear, save perhaps that hiding their souls would seem an admission of cowardice and inevitable defeat to the proud raveners. ECOLOGY Raveners are self-made undead, not created or generated spontaneously in the fashion of weaker undead. As such, their nature reflects the circumstances of their transformation. Careless adventurers may well mistake a ravener for a mere draconic skeleton or zombie, an error few survive. All known raveners were dragons of at least ancient status, though it is unclear whether this is because a lesser dragon cannot master (or survive) the dark rituals of undeath, or simply because no younger dragon has the same incentive to take such an insane risk. Once reborn, raveners are effectively immortal, dying only from mishap or the powerful alliances that sometimes rise up to destroy them. Even the most successful ravener transformation comes with a terrible price, as all of the living dragon’s natural magical abilities are burned away in an instant in the explosion of necromantic energies. In its place, negative energy floods in to infuse and enhance the ravener’s breath weapon, fuel her magical powers, and even sustain the creature’s ability to fly on skeletal wings. This magic cannot be generated or replaced as it would be for a normal, living dragons—instead, to wield magic the ravener must reap the life-energy of living victims. Raveners bind this life-energy into their soul wards, the coronas of negative energy that surround these undead dragons. The more powerful the soul, the more energy is claimed by the ravener. No two raveners manifest their soul wards in quite the same way. Some soul wards infuse the ravener with a shadowy aura, others with the screaming spirits of the dead. Some raveners lack a visible soul ward entirely, making that part of themselves invisible to deny their opponents a complete understanding of their defenses. The energy contained within the soul ward fuels the ravener’s arcane power, guards the ravener from harm, and sustains her unliving existence. A ravener deprived of the ability to refresh her soul ward must carefully hoard her magical energy, and should she be denied victims, she slowly deteriorates and grows vulnerable, eventually crumbling to dust—though few come close to that point, with the all-consuming hunger of the empty ward driving them to death in battle long before soul starvation sets in. HABITAT & SOCIETY Inherently solitary, raveners do not seek out the company of other dragons, least of all that of other raveners. They do not appreciate reminders of what was surrendered in their quest for immort ality, nor do they allow others near the secrets of their power. Raveners with overlapping territories rarely fall into direct conflict, being all too aware that few other creatures are so capable of ending their near-immortal existences. Instead, they negotiate, posture, and scheme, each seeking to drive the other away to safer grounds. On the rare occasions when raveners do work or lair together, they were most often acquainted or mated in their mortal lives. Raveners view most other undead with contempt, and believe them to be useful only as base servants. Even so, they have a curious affinity with the spectral dead, often creating or recruiting spectres, wraiths, and allips as spies or guardians. The fell nightshades are among the few entities raveners treat as near-equals, and at times as particularly deadly allies. Living servants are rarer still, though some canny raveners imprison live prey, the better to keep their soul wards at full strength. Their burning hatred of life and their perpetual need for souls lead raveners to hunt far more often than their mortal kin. Within a short span of years, raveners can deplete their hunting grounds of all palatable life, forcing them to change lairs more frequently than all but the most capricious living dragons. If anything, ravener lairs are even more inaccessible than those of most dragons, as raveners thrive in environments inimical to living creatures. Many raveners favor lairs contaminated by toxic gases, beneath the surfaces of swamps or stagnant lakes, or at altitudes where the thin air imperils breathing creatures. Some even collapse the entrances to their lairs and rely on teleportation, gaseous form, or polymorph spells for passage in and out CAMPAIGN ROLE Raveners work best in high-level campaigns, as creatures powerful enough to challenge an entire party, yet do not necessarily need to be the focus of entire campaigns. While raveners can certainly be “big bad end villains,” their never-ending search for new hunting grounds also makes them ideal “event monsters”—newly arrived threats to the party’s territory or the loved ones they left behind. Securing the means to combat a ravener and run her to ground in her lair can be the work of a few sessions, or a major arc within a greater campaign. Possessed of both the instinct to hoard and an even longer lifespan than true dragons, raveners make ideal guardians for key treasures within a campaign. Nearly any magic item coveted by adventurers might be found within a ravener’s hoard, though claiming such treasures presents no mean task. For a twist, the campaign’s villain could be the one seeking to pillage the ravener, manipulating the adventurers as a distraction so that she might claim the treasure for her own. The quest of an aged and evil dragon to become a ravener could also make for a compelling campaign arc. Throughout the campaign, the adventurers might come in conflict with a dragon’s lesser servants as she schemes to complete her pact with blasphemous powers or locate the proper components for her final ritual of transformation. Perhaps they even encounter the dragon herself at some point, making it that much more shocking when, at the very end of the campaign, they witness her final triumphant transformation and have to face down not just the mortal dragon they expected, but a newly reborn ravener. TREASURE No less covetous than any other dragon, raveners’ lust for wealth is significantly impacted by their regular need to change lairs. Most raveners spurn the massive coin-beds frequently associated with dragonkind, favoring more portable wealth such as gems, jewelry, and objects d’art. Raveners prize magic items quite highly, particularly those they can make use of in their current undead forms. Those capable of changing form seek out items suitable for humanoids as well. When relocating to a new lair, raveners often collect items such as bags of holding, portable holes, or even ring gates that will aid them in their move. Yet even then, it’s not uncommon for a ravener changing lairs to take what she feels is worth carrying and then seal the rest in her old lair, blocking off any entrances and leaving magical wards and devoted guardians to protect what’s left. These hoards are natural bonanzas for adventurers, yet raveners’ tendency to drop by their various caches at random intervals makes ransacking them almost as dangerous as infiltrating a ravener’s current lair. Raveners particularly value magic items that heal the undead, including potions, scrolls, andwands of inflict spells. Some even employ fabulous treasures like amulets of the planes or cubic gates that allow them to bask in the healing energies of the Negative Energy Plane, or else scour the world for other items of benefit to the undead, such as darkskulls a nd talismans of ultimate evil. VARIANTS The process by which a dragon becomes a ravener typically involves recruiting dark powers and undertaking necromantic rituals. Some of these rituals incorporate unusual stages that can alter the resulting ravener’s powers. Two example alternative rituals are presented below—others might well exist in forbidden texts. Nightmare Ravener (+0 CR) Driven by fear of death in life, this ravener feeds upon the fear of others in death. The ritual to become a nightmare ravener requires bargaining with powerful entities from the nightmare dimension of Leng or with deities of nightmares like Lamashtu. Unlike normal raveners, nightmare raveners do not inflict negative levels on a critical hit, though they keep their increased threat range. Nightmare raveners instead gain the deadly terror special attack. Deadly Terror (Su) Whenever a nightmare ravener scores a hit with a natural weapon against a cowering, frightened, panicked, or shaken creature, she deals an additional 2d6 points of negative energy damage. For each such hit, she also adds 1 point to her soul ward ability even if the creature struck is immune to negative energy damage. This extra damage is not increased on a critical hit. Thassilonian Ravener (+0 CR) The runelords of Thassilon, particularly the necromancer Zutha, often traded their powerful magical secrets to dragons in return for a period of servitude while the dragons lived. When this period ended, the runelord would aid the dragons in making the transition from living to undead. The methods for these rituals still exist in certain Thassilonian ruins, and are invariably guarded by the raveners who used the rituals to transcend their own mortality. A Thassilonian ravener’s bones are etched with numerous runes of power. These runes alter the link between the ravener’s magic and her soul ward. A Thassilonian ravener lacks the soul magic ability of most raveners—she casts her spells as normal for a dragon, using spell slots. Each time a Thassilonian ravener casts a spell, she heals damage equal to twice the level of the spell cast. If her soul ward is damaged, any “healing” the ravener gains from casting spells applies first to restoring hit points to her soul ward. If a ravener casts a spell while both her soul ward and her body are at full hit points, she becomes hasted for 1 round. Since most dragons know better than to invite such dangerous and evil powers into their bodies, raveners are far rarer than normaldragons. They are attracted to forbidding places that are simultaneously difficult enough to reach that they won’t be bothered by foolhardy crusaders, yet still near enough to large populations that the raveners won’t have to work hard to find sustenance. The Tusk and Kodar Mountains of the north, the Shattered Range of the south, and the endless marshes of the Sodden Lands are all prime examples of regions where raveners might find suitable lairs. Raveners sometimes dwell openly in darker nations like Nidal, demanding regular tribute to stay their depredations, though these arrangements rarely last for long, as the other powers that be eventually rise up against the raveners or the undead dragons’ own appetite gets the better of them. Raveners are anathema to all but the most depraved of livingdragons. Both chromatic and metallic dragons are quick to drive them from their territories when possible, and mount attacks on other dragons who seek to make the transition. One might suppose that raveners would hold Urgathoain high esteem, yet the undeaddragons often have little use for her despite her power. They share her rejection of Pharasma’s plan, but scant few seek out Urgathoa’s grace either during mortal life or in undeath. Scholars theorize that would-be raveners reject the obligations that Urgathoa would place upon their undead existence, opting instead for pacts that require only sacrifice in life, not service beyond. Urgathoaherself disdains the raveners’ destructive impulses, behavior more suited to a near-mindless corpse than to undead who rank themselves among the mightiest in all Golarion. Though few named raveners still exist (primarily because those close enough to the action to learn a ravener’s name either destroy the abomination or are themselves consumed), a noteworthy specimen named Arantaros calls the Barrier Wall his home. Pleased with his service, the demon lordHaagenti provided the blue dragonscholar Arantaros with the tainted gift of immortality, that the ravener might continue his devious studies into the esoteric arts of necromancy and alchemy, and it’s whispered in parts of Thuvia that the ravener may be secretly researching the legendary sun orchid elixir, in the hope of reversing his condition and living forever without the aid of his demonic patron. Another ravener whose name has been lost to history haunts the broken reaches of Virlych inUstalav, consuming those who brave the twisted land. Once a principal servant of the Whispering Tyrant, this ravener now feeds and bides his time, guarding the region around Gallowspire and waiting for Tar-Baphon to rise once more and complete his conquest. Ravener Pacts While some raveners achieve their status through arcane study and necromantic power, others are born of a combination of blasphemous rituals and the malign influence of dark powers. Raveners of this latter group must each seek out an evil patron to feed his or her necromantic rebirth. Each patron requires sacrifices and tribute pleasing to its debased desires. The aspiring ravener must first further the patron’s schemes upon her home world and perhaps others. Thedragon might be sent against the patron’s foes, tasked with obtaining lost relics, or made a general among the patron’s mortal followers. In addition, the dragonmust show the depth of her resolve. For some dragons, this means slaying their parents, mates, or children; the sacrifice of their most prized treasures; the annihilation of their life’s work; or some other show of commitment. Finally, the ravener must amass sufficient eldritch power to shatter natural laws or the barriers between planes and become the conduit for her patron’s might. Should the dragonfalter in her tasks or prove an unworthy vessel for the power of her patron, what remains of her shattered soul languishes in servitude to her patron until the end of days. Category:Monster Category:Monster Category:Monster